Is there a church that accepts evolution?

Just to expand and clarify specifically the Catholic situation, which extends fairly well to the Anglica/Episcopalian and Lutheran and Presbyterian thought to a fairly high degree.

The Catholic Church has not definitive position on Evolution. Catholics are pretty much allowed to believe what ever they want about the creation story (and I virtually never hear anyone arguing about it or worried about it in Catholic circles). The Catholic Church understand scripture has not necessarily intended to be read literally.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church Part I, Section I, Chapter 2 http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a3.h...

" 116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."83

117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God's plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ's victory and also of Christian Baptism.84

2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written "for our instruction".85

3. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, "leading"). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.86 "

So the summary of that is that although we start with the literal meaning, we don't stop there and we try to understand the deeper truths that are meant to be conveyed. Also, we acknowledge that the different books and chpaters in the Bible contain different types of Literature and that some Books are more historical and literal, while others are chock full of symbolism and not meant literally at all.

So getting back to evolution specifically. The Catholic Church understand that God created man (humanity). How and by what mechanisms God created are open questions. Only when scientist overstep the proper bounds of science try to use evolution to prove that God didn't create is there a problem. There is an interesting question regarding Adam and Eve and it is an open area of investigation but the general thought is that an actual First Man and First Woman are necessary, but how they came to be is not an issue. It isn't clear how to reconcile multiple origins of the human family with the doctrine of original sin.

So I do know more than a handful of Catholics who are of creationist / intelligent design points of view. Personally I accept evolution as far as the actual science goes, just not the extra spin and interpretation that Dawkins et. al. insist on putting into it. John Paul II from my reading of his speeches and comments in this area, thought pretty much as I do, or at least was open to that. Benedict XVI as the former Cardinal Ratzinger appeared to disagree but I don't think he really does. He was addressing more the extreme (but very common) broader use of evolution that extends to eliminating God from the world.

It does accept it as a valid theory just like the scientific community. Science can not prove anything it is not in the nature of science to do that. That is for maths. The Church never said the world was flat. The flat Earth thing was made up by a telephone company in the 70s to sell more phones. The Church has NEVER said that the world was flat. THe Church did accept that the Earth was not at the centre of the universe as soon as there was sufficient evidence to say that it was not. It only took the Church 6 months to come to that new conclusion once there was sufficient evidence. The Catholic Church first formulated the scientific method and has always used it since the method was formed. You are really showing a great display of ignorance if you did not know that the first modern schools, universities and hospitals and similar endeavours are founded on the educational principles of the Catholic Church.

Catholics do. The main reason being that we understand the 7 days, Noah's ark and all that as symbolic --since there are 2 creation stories neither can be literal.

Most mainstream denominations do not deny evolution, though they often don't promote it. The Catholic church freely teaches evolution in it's schools and a few popes have said publicly they accept evolution.

It's mostly their more fundamentalist members who don't spend the time to understand what their churches really believe that deny evolution.

Dr.Hugh Ross.PhD is an Astronomer and a Pastor!

He has written books about Genesis Chapter 1

Read them and you will be surprised that Science and Bible goes hand in hand!

Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian. Most of the more liberal, mainstream (non-fundamentalist) denominations accept evolution.

Look into the mainstream churches - the Congregationalists, the ELCA Lutherans, the Episcopalians, Catholics and so on. It's really only the conservative fundamentalist churches that reject evolution.

So in other words you like some parts of the bible about zombie jesus but you're gonna ignore what you consider to be the really batshit crazy parts like a boat with every species on it?

Why not go all the way and admit it's all bullshit?

You would be more likely to find logical people who believe in evolution as it fits into the Bible in a Catholic Church...

although non-Catholics think that we are ridiculously structured and unwilling to bend, we are the only Church that allows gays to be members of the Church...

hope this helps

**hey, sorry for saying I was Catholic**

**thumbs down are welcome**

Most of them, including catholicism and anglicanism